Sometimes the idea of re-entry is electric. The light bulb goes on and suddenly programs become a reality. Other times it's like lighting a fire, and takes a longer, committed effort.

It can happen for several reasons. In the trenches, community organizations, corrections agencies, health officials, social workers and housing advocates may one day realize they are serving the same population, or, from the top down, officials want to improve recidivism rates, or, individually, advocates want to stop the cycle of crime among families. Whatever the reason, whatever the vehicle, people are coming together to improve ex-offenders' ability to succeed in the community after release.

"What re-entry has done is give corrections an identity in the community," said Sheila Hudson, Executive Director of Allen County, Ind., Community Corrections.

Hudson and others in Allen County have been involved in re-entry for several years after the state legislature's passage of a Community Supervision Statute in 1999. That law allows each county to develop its own transition program for inmates returning to the community from prison.

In 2000, officials in Allen County, including Hudson, a local judge, the mayor of Fort Wayne, and a Fort Wayne native who worked in the Department of Justice came up with the idea for a re-entry court. The program allows for the early release of non-violent and violent offenders that meet certain criteria who would simultaneously be supervised as they returned to the community by electronic monitoring. Then the program provides them assistance in the community to get them on their feet.

The participating offenders gain a certain number of early release days based on the type of crime they were incarcerated for. A Class A felon, for example, would be granted a 120-day early release, while a Class D offender is eligible for a 60-day early release. The offenders serve the remainder of their sentences in the community on electronic monitoring and report to a re-entry judge, attend programming stipulated in their program plan and work with a variety of community corrections re-entry staff.

According to Stan Pflueger, Manager for the Allen County Re-entry Court, participation in the program is optional, but program administrators are encouraging offenders to become involved because of the improvements they have seen.

"We are trying to make it less optional. We have people who deny it for various reasons, but we've seen the success and feel they would be better off," said Pflueger.

According to Pflueger, the recidivism statistics for offenders prior to the re-entry court showed that 45 percent of those released, returned within the first year - most for committing new crimes. That statistic rose to 66 percent after three years. Now, of those participating in the re-entry court, only 25 percent recidivate within a year and for those who do re-offend, they are doing so by committing less-serious offenses.

To graduate from the re-entry court program, however, offenders have to take a long, hard look at themselves, their needs and commit to their re-entry plan for a year.

"The incentive on the front-end is early release and they also have access to all kinds of services," said Pflueger. "If they don't comply, a judge can extend their time."

Some common denominators among all participants are regular random drug testing and substance abuse treatment, anger management and GED programming. Then the remainder of the programming is tailored to each individual's needs and may include job readiness classes, access to mental health services as well as the re-instatement of licenses.

Recently, the local Allen County faith community has become involved in the program to provide mentoring to the offenders as well as community service opportunities.

According to Hudson, the community corrections department made a special effort to show community members the tremendous needs of the returning ex-offender population to improve community buy-in. As a result, the faith community came forward.

"We put together a large map to show where people go, how many, who needs jobs and we sought the faith community to help with this. One of the most successful aspects of this is when faith community members meet with family and the offenders. The church members go to re-entry court every Friday," said Hudson.

Another recent change in the program is a focus for community corrections staff on recognizing an offender's resistance to change. This change, which has come in the form of training for staff in motivational interviewing, is intended to help offenders understand and believe in the changes that they need to make in their lives.

"It's easy to go an dictate to somebody what they need to do, but they need to believe in it," Hudson said.

According to Pflueger, the training for re-entry staff has helped them to recognize which stage of change an offender may be in and how to push them along through the other stages to completion.

"The training is about how do you move someone from 'I don't think I have a problem.' to 'Ok, I have a problem, but I don't want to take action.' to "I want to do something about it,'" he said.

With these kinds of changes, support from the community and improvements being made by the ex-offender population, the re-entry court is enjoying success. Similar achievements are also being made in Pinellas County, Florida where a joint effort by community members and the sheriff's office has brought about the creation of several re-entry programs.

PERC Succeeds with Community/County Involvement

In 1988 Pinellas County, Fla., officials conducted a study to determine what improvements and efficiencies could be made. One sub-committee involved the local jail because county officials knew they wanted to find a way to reduce the number of new jail beds that needed to be built.

The spin-off of this subcommittee has ultimately led to recognition of the need for re-entry services.

An informal coalition of community members and jail officials decided to meet regularly to discuss some of the issues facing the county in terms of the jail population. Today, that coalition is incorporated, participates in several re-entry programs in the local jail, has created an informational website and has raised awareness about re-entry issues throughout the county.

"All of this wouldn't have gone very far without the sheriff's office, which also runs the jail, and the leadership of the county who knew they had to do things differently," said Frank Kopczynski, Pinellas County Ex-offender Re-entry Coalition (PERC) Chairman.

Although there is no direct link between the sheriff's office and the PERC, the coalition has collaborated with the sheriff's office on grants to bring re-entry programs to the county. Additionally, staff members from the sheriff's office serve on the coalition's board.

"We're very supportive of these programs and without them we wouldn't be nearly as effective as we are with offenders," said Kopczynski.

The sheriff's office currently offers two offender re-entry programs that help prepare offenders for release and the coalition has another that was recently implemented.

Project New Attitudes is a nine-week, in-jail program for adult male offenders that teaches a variety of skills and provides treatment ranging from anger management and domestic violence counseling to resume writing and adult basic education. Then after release the offenders receive a year of aftercare where offenders are connected to employment opportunities and receive assistance from organizations in the community.

For female offenders, the sheriff's office provides Project Success, which is targeted specifically to offenders with substance abuse problems. According to Ramona Jubar Merritt, Program Administrator for Project Success, female offenders receive much of the same pre-release planning as the male offenders except they also gain a healthy dose of drug treatment programming

"We have a modified therapeutic community and New Attitudes has a separate housing unit. They are in direct supervision with one deputy. It's more conducive to the therapeutic community," said Merritt.

With grant money for both programs, the sheriff's office has been able to prepare offenders through the classes and hire counselors to work with them while incarcerated to give them individual case management support.

And, with a new aftercare case manager hired this year, the sheriff's office can now provide this support and track offenders for a year after release.

"We were obligated to link people to aftercare. In discharge planning we [we're ] trying to bring resources from the outside inside," said Merritt.

The sheriff's office has also been able to gain assistance from its connections within the coalition.

A PERC program called Project Access helps to link aftercare services for offenders involved in these two programs and serve other ex-offenders needing assistance.

Under this program, which is also supported by a grant, the coalition supports a one-stop that provides employment services to ex-offenders. In addition, the program has employed two counselors to also address additional issues offenders may have after release, such as substance abuse treatment or housing assistance.

"You have to look at the other complications," said Michael Jalazo, Program Administrator, Project New Attitudes and a board member for PERC. "If it is sober living that they need, then you need to find them sober living."

With all of these grant-supported programs coming together, ex-offenders in Pinellas County have some real resources in the community to reach out to and may have a fighting chance at a new life. And, according to Jalazo, corrections officials have learned about the benefits these programs provide to the county.

"There is a dollar value to what it costs to house an inmate for a year. You can make a political argument for keeping people out of prison. That argument needs to be made because as much as we like to believe the feel-good stories, when it comes down to politics, it's all about cutting the budget," he said.

N.C. County Develops Re-Entry Programming

The cost of incarceration of inmates in North Carolina has also caught the attention of leaders in that state as a re-entry program in Forsyth County has shown promise both in reducing recidivism and the budget.

What began as an inquiry by one administrator in the workforce development office in Winston-Salem about how to better prepare ex-offenders for finding work in the community has blossomed into a full-fledged re-entry program - with a $30 per inmate per diem cost savings.

According to Rebecca Sauter, Project Reentry Program Manager for the Northwest Piedmont Council of Governments, she began discussions several years ago with a local social worker about how to learn more about offenders prior to their release into the community.

"We found there wasn't a whole lot of a relationship between the community and the corrections department," said Sauter.

This prompted a series of conversations with corrections officials and community service organizations about these issues and how to address them. The next step Sauter took was to apply for a grant from the state crime commission in 2003. The grant allowed for the creation of a position to help the community and the local prison in Forsyth County better serve offenders as they are released.

The program, now up and running, provides 12-week group sessions for any offender who is identified 18 months prior to release who will need assistance and services. The group sessions bring community resources into the facility, provide cognitive behavioral intervention, consumer credit counseling and familiarize offenders with the services they can receive after release.

"We have tremendous cooperation from the DOC. The head of programs identifies those inmates who will be released and sits down with them one on one," said Sauter.

Sauter said those who complete six of the 12 weeks are eligible for post release services.

Once in the community, offenders meet with Sauter to address the needs that have been identified, but the main focus is to find them employment and training.

"My expectation is to have them employed within 30 days. The retention rate for the inmates is over 80 percent if they are in the program for six months after release," she said. "The gentlemen know they can participate or not. It's positive consequences for positive behavior."

Sauter said the program has grown to the point where there is a waiting list at the facility of those wanting to participate and a list of offenders at other facilities who want to be transferred to participate.

Part of the program's success, Sauter said, can also be attributed to the support that correctional staff and the community organizations have given the project.

To help both sides understand the importance of pre-release planning and re-entry services, Sauter provided training to address some of the misconceptions they had.

"There was a lack of confidence that what [correctional staff] was doing applies to ex-offenders. [And] there is a sense that what they [community resource providers] provide for ex-offenders needs to be different. We did many trainings to try to educate [them] and address their concerns," said Sauter.

The benefits of the program have caught the attention of offenders and officials on the outside.

Talk among prisoners on the yard has helped offenders trust the program, Sauter said.

"The word of mouth is amazing. So many know each other and informally recruit each other. They trust that we come in and we stay and when they get out, we are here too," she said.

With support and interest from the clientele secure, Sauter said the program is poised to expand. Now she hopes that the program's cost-saving benefits will help it survive a recent cut in state funding. She has even applied for a federal Department of Labor re-entry grant to keep re-entry moving forward in Forsyth County.

"I'm really going to fight to keep this program even without our funding. There's too much at stake to let it go and there's too many offenders who are coming out," said Sauter.

Resources:

Allen County Re-entry Court - www.allencountycorrections.com

PERC - www.exoffender.org

Forsyth County Project Re-entry - www.nwpcog.dst.nc.us/CJ/CJ_Forsyth_Reentry.htm